


Lingua Franca

by Seascribe



Series: Lingua Franca [1]
Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011), due South
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Languages and Linguistics, Snippets, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-24 08:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray's pretty sure nobody actually <i>speaks</i> Latin any more. Except for, apparently, this chick and Fraser.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lingua Franca

**Author's Note:**

  * For [healingmirth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/healingmirth/gifts).



> Eventually, I would like to rewrite this so that it also involves Marcus and Esca and an actual plot and stuff. Right now, it's just a snippet I wrote for Fandom_Stocking 2012.

Cottia sits in the villa doorway, enjoying the summer sunlight as she spins. Every now and then, she looks up, hoping to see Marcus and Esca coming over the crest of the hill. Five days now they have been gone on their trading in Venta Belgarum, which is rather longer than it should take, and she is anxious for them to be home. She would have liked to go with them, but travelling with the little one is not so easy. 

Flavia plays in the dust at her feet, chattering quietly to herself in nonsense sounds as she arranges the herd of little wooden horses that Esca had carved and painted for her. Cub yawns and stretches, knocking over a group of the toys, and Flavia gives him an aggrieved frown that is so very like Marcus that Cottia bursts into laughter.

When she looks up again, there are two men standing in the yard, not a spear's cast from her. Strange looking men--or beings in the shape of men, at least--one in a red tunic brighter even than the plume on Marcus' centurion's helmet, and the other with his hair pale and spiked as if for battle, though he does not carry any weapon that Cottia can see, not even a knife. There is a dog too, a savage-looking, shaggy thing.

Cottia snatches Flavia into her arms, stepping back over the threshold. Cub, hackling and growling, places himself protectively before them. 

The man in red says something sharply to the dog, and it settles reluctantly by his side. The yellow-haired man raises his hands, speaking to Cottia in an ugly, incomprehensible tongue. She shakes her head, taking another step back into the house. A few more steps and she could seize the poker from the hearth. Flavia whimpers, looking over her shoulder for her scattered toys, and Cottia hushes her. 

The man in red is speaking, saying something to his companion, and then to Cottia. He smiles at her and tries again in a different tongue, but Cottia can still make no sense of any of his words. But she is beginning to think that, even though they are clearly not of this world, perhaps they do not mean her harm. 

"What-- _who_ are you?" Cottia demands, finding her voice at last. "Where did you come from?" 

A look of delighted comprehension passes over the man's face. "You speak Latin!"

Cottia stares at him. She does not especially _like_ speaking Latin, and mostly on the farm they speak British, but she is standing in the doorway of a Roman villa, scarcely fifteen Roman miles from Noviomagus Regnorum. It would be very strange indeed if she did not speak Latin.

"My apologies," the man says in his awful accent. "Hail! I am, er, constable Benton Fraser--" he hesitates, looking anxiously at his companion, who makes an aggrieved face at him and shrugs. The man--Cottia thinks perhaps he tried to tell her his name, but she couldn't understand it--sighs, rubbing his eyebrow. "My Latin is not very good," he says apologetically. "My name is Benton Fraser, and this is my partner, Ray. And my wolf, Diefenbaker." 

Cottia assumes that the incomprehensible words mixed in with the Latin are their names. "And what exactly are you doing here?"

"I don't know." Another eyebrow rub. "We're very far from home." 

Cottia sucks in a deep breath through her nose, to keep from snapping at this otherworldly stranger with his ridiculous name and horrible accent. There was no telling what might happen if she offended them. 

"Well," she says, trying very hard to sound polite. "What is it that you want?" 

He looks for a moment as though that is a harder question than anticipated. Then he glances at his partner, who has been frowning and fidgeting while they talk. 

"To go back home," he says. "As soon as possible." 

Cottia hasn't the faintest idea where home even _is_ for them, let alone how to help them get back. But the man gives her a look of such desperate hope that she cannot bring herself to turn them away.

"So be it. I will help you if I can." 

*

Ray has no clue what is going on. One minute, he was opening the closet in the suspect's apartment, and Fraser was yelling, "Ray, don't--!" and then they're standing on this doorstep with a dog that looks even more wolfish than Dief growling at them and a skinny red-headed girl showing her teeth, like maybe she wouldn't hesitate to bite them, if the dog didn't get to them first. She's holding a kid, turned so that her body is mostly blocking it from view.

"Hey, listen, it's okay," Ray tells her. "You're safe, we're not going to hurt you."

"I don't believe she speaks English, Ray," Fraser says. But that's okay, because Fraser speaks about a hundred languages, and he starts going through them one by one, starts with German and goes on to French, and after that, they all start to sound pretty much the same to Ray. 

Something must click, because the girl asks a question, and Fraser starts beaming. For a second, things feel almost normal, because now the girl is staring at Fraser like he's grown a second head, and Ray recognises him gearing up to give his RCMP spiel. Just like the good old days in Chicago! Only, after listening for a few seconds, Ray realises that Fraser's speaking Latin--which Ray doesn't understand, but he recognises the sound of it from the Latin Mass they did sometimes when he was growing up--and what the fuck is up with that? Hungarian or Swedish or something, sure, okay, but Ray's pretty sure nobody actually _speaks_ Latin any more. Except for, apparently, this chick and Fraser. 

But Fraser's Latin must be rusty, because he sort of fumbles to a stop, giving Ray this kind of pitiful look. Which, what, does he expect Ray to be any help here with this girl who apparently only speaks Latin? Fraser makes a tiny bitchy face back at him and gives it another shot. 

The girl doesn't look very impressed, and there's a lot of eyebrow rubbing going on. But at least she's not snarling at them any more and the wolf has lets its hackles down some. She says something that makes Fraser smile, and then the baby starts crying. The girl looks like she really, really doesn't want to invite them into the house, but the kid is going full-steam now, and she must feel like she doesn't have a choice, because she stands aside and gestures stiffly for them to come in. Ray is very careful to keep his hands where she can see them, doing his best to look calm, sane, and completely non-threatening. 

Fraser stoops to pick up a couple of wooden toys lying in the doorway. The baby makes a little hiccupping noise, stretching out her hands. Fraser--who is also giving off his best "I am not a threat" vibes--slowly holds them out to her and makes the puffin-face. The girl is back to looking at him like he's got two heads, but the kid seems to like it. She giggles a little and makes a face back. 

"Fraser," Ray hisses. "You want to maybe stop pretending to be a puffin and clue me in on what's happening here?" Because he's already figured out that they're not anywhere near Chicago and the only person around is an angry teenager who apparently only speaks Latin. That's bad enough, but now that they're inside, he's starting to notice other things. Like the fact that the girl's dress looks like it's been sewn by hand, and there aren't any electric lights or wires, and through that door, he can see an honest to god cauldron hanging over the fire. And Ray does not like any of the places that those clues are pointing. 

"I'm not completely certain, Ray," Fraser says. "Just a moment." Fraser asks the girl a couple of questions, says "Ah," once or twice in response to her answers, and gives Ray a worried look.

The girl points emphatically at the arrangement of benches on the other side of the room, and then disappears into what Ray figures is the kitchen, almost-but-not-quite slamming the door behind her, the way Stella used to do when she fought with her parents.

"The young lady--she is understandably reluctant to divulge her name--tells me this might the year of the consulship of Pontianus and Rufinus, although it might be that she has the first fellow's name wrong or that they were last year's consuls. While that rather dubious information means very little to me, she also tells me that the Emperor is Hadrianus Augustus, which means that the year is somewhere between 117 and 138 AD."

"The Emperor?" Ray says. His voice sounds kind of shaky. "138 AD? Fraser, you are not telling me we're in Ancient Rome." 

"Certainly not," Fraser says. "We're in Roman Britain, approximately 23 kilometers inland from what will one day be the city of Chichester."

"Don't do that, Fraser. Do not try to distract me with your kilometers and your geography," Ray says. 

"I'm sorry, Ray," Fraser says. "I assure you that this is just as shocking for me as it is you." 

"So I don't guess you know how to get us home?" Ray says. 

"I have a few theories," Fraser says, and Ray recognises that fake-hearty voice he's putting on, trying to make things look better than they actually are. Ray is pretty sure he's going to throw up, all over these nice black and white tiles. 

The girl comes back from the kitchen, still carrying the baby on her hip. She's got a tray with some cups and a plate of what looks like olives balanced on her free hand. Fraser hurries over to help her. She glares at him, and says something sharp, jerking her chin at the benches as she deposits the tray neatly onto the table.

"She's offering us hospitality," Fraser explains. Ray has a feeling that if they don't accept, they're going to be sorry.


End file.
